Trump’s COVID Coverup - During the 2020 campaign, the former President tested positive days before debating Joe Biden and kept it secret. - link
The Supreme Court Looks Ready to Overturn Roe v. Wade - Lawyers and Justices on both sides—with the possible exception of John Roberts—appeared to be past pretending that the Mississippi case is about anything less. - link
The Uncertainties of the Omicron Variant - The new coronavirus strain is worrisome—but its effect won’t be the same everywhere. - link
Will the Omicron Travel Restrictions Work? - Attempts to slow the pandemic by screening international arrivals have a mixed record of success. - link
Chris Cuomo’s Personal Journey - The self-evaluation will be televised. - link
From Vox
Israeli spyware was used against US diplomats in Uganda -
A woman walks past an NSO Group building at one of the company’s branches in the Arava Desert on November 11, 2021, in Sapir, Israel. | Amir Levy/Getty Images
A hack targeting US officials is just the latest problem for NSO Group, the Israeli company behind Pegasus spyware.
The advanced spyware Pegasus, created by Israeli firm NSO Group and used by governments like Saudi Arabia to gather intelligence on those it deems terrorists or criminals, has reportedly been detected on at least 11 iPhones used by US officials in Uganda or conducting business related to the country, as well as locals working for the embassy.
That news — first reported Friday by Reuters — will likely exacerbate NSO Group’s fraught relationship with the US government; while the company claims that Pegasus can’t be used on phones with US numbers, the recent hack shows there are loopholes which allow foreign governments to spy on US citizens and government employees. It’s the first known incident of the technology being used against American officials, although it’s not yet known which of NSO Group’s clients hacked the devices.
NSO Group has long claimed that its clients — which run the gamut from from monarchies like the UAE to democratic nations like Germany and Mexico — are closely vetted, but there is a long record of its technology being misused for nefarious purposes, like spying on dissidents or estranged spouses, as the ruler of Dubai is alleged to have done.
NSO Group scandals also pose a diplomatic problem; though NSO is a private company, it’s closely linked to the Israeli government, and Israel’s defense ministry has to sign off on the export license for the technology, ostensibly ensuring that it’s used only for the purposes “of preventing and investigating crime and counterterrorism,” according to an Israeli defense spokesperson who spoke to the Washington Post in July.
Extensive reporting from 17 outlets and more than 80 journalists proves, however, that that hasn’t always been the case: Among other incidents, Pegasus was allegedly used to surveil Saudi dissident and Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi before his murder in October 2018.
More recently, the US has started to take action against the company. In November, NSO Group was placed on the Commerce Department’s “entity list,” which severely restricts the export of American technologies that could be used by NSO Group to support Pegasus and similar projects.
Now, given the recent reporting on Pegasus’s use against State Department employees, harsher crackdowns on NSO and similar technology could be on the horizon. On Thursday, the Biden administration announced plans for a US-led initiative on the use of surveillance technology — like Pegasus — by authoritarian regimes. The aim, according to the Wall Street Journal, is to create a framework around the export and licensing controls of such technology, as well as create an information-sharing network to detect and report on its misuse.
Pegasus has been used to spy on dissidents, journalists, and politicians
According to the Washington Post, 11 people connected to the US embassy in the Ugandan capital Kampala — including some US citizens working as foreign service officers — were notified by Apple that their devices had been hacked.
While NSO has previously said Pegasus can’t be used against US-based devices, Americans working overseas can — and often do — acquire local phone numbers, which may be vulnerable to Pegasus attacks.
According to the New York Times, the targets were easily identifiable as State Department employees — they had used their professional email addresses to create their Apple IDs. While it’s not clear who perpetrated the attack, and there is no indication it was NSO Group or the state of Israel, using the Pegasus exploit, hackers could look at and copy files from targets’ devices, as well as track their movements and record conversations.
NSO Group maintains that governments that purchase Pegasus are carefully vetted and are not to use the product besides for specific purposes; however, the company has repeatedly sold Pegasus to countries known to use surveillance technology to track dissidents, lawyers, journalists, and other members of civil society.
Extensive reporting in July showed that security services and law enforcement agencies in places like Saudi Arabia, Mexico, Azerbaijan, and Morocco appeared to have purchased the technology, according to reporting by the Pegasus Project, a consortium of 17 news outlets including the Washington Post, the Guardian, Die Zeit, and French outlet Forbidden Stories.
According to the Pegasus Project, a list of 50,000 potential target phone numbers was hacked, apparently from servers in Cyprus, and leaked to Forbidden Stories and Amnesty International, who shared it with journalists. They were able to identify 1,000 different potential targets from the phone numbers, including politicians like French President Emmanuel Macron, a key US ally, as well as journalists, activists, and lawyers from around the world.
Pegasus is so useful — or so dangerous, depending on one’s perspective — because it can access a target’s phone completely undetected. While the spyware can infect via a link sent through a messaging service like WhatsApp, it’s also possible for users to access targets’ phones through a so-called “zero-day” exploit — a bug that the device manufacturer hasn’t yet detected. The exploit can be active and present on a device for months before the manufacturer finds the flaw and fixes it.
According to Reuters, the devices infected in the attacks against State Department officials were initiated through a graphics processing vulnerability which had been open to exploitation since at least February of this year, and wasn’t been patched until September. Other victims include Thai dissidents and a Ugandan opposition leader.
Once a device has been infected, Pegasus can access even encrypted messaging systems like Signal, as well as cameras and microphones — enabling the hacker to record conversations and turning the device into a secret surveillance tool in itself, according to the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project. The Guardian’s reporting at the time suggested that in addition to attacking via widely-used messaging apps, Pegasus could potentially have the capability to attack through the Photos and Music apps on Apple devices.
In November, the company and another Israeli tech manufacturer, Candiru, were added to the US Commerce Department’s entity list, a move which prohibits NSO Group from purchasing US technology.
According to the Commerce Department, the decision to do so was made “based on evidence that these entities developed and supplied spyware to foreign governments that used these tools to maliciously target government officials, journalists, businesspeople, activists, academics, and embassy workers,” as well as evidence that the companies’ spyware was being used by governments to suppress dissent on a global scale.
The decision puts NSO Group in the company of firms like Huawei, the Chinese technology manufacturer which many Western governments have accused of digital espionage. It’s an undesirable position for a company so closely tied to the government of a US ally — one whose military and defense industries are deeply entwined with the US.
NSO Group is in debt and under pressure
Shortly after NSO Group was added to the entity list last month, according to Axios, former NSO Group CEO and co-founder Shalev Hulio wrote to Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Defense Minister Benny Gantz, asking Israel to lobby Washington on NSO’s behalf. Hulio reportedly claimed that the addition of NSO Group to the entity list was a coordinated campaign by anti-Israeli organizations to damage the reputation of Israeli businesses, and NSO Group said publicly it was “dismayed” by the decision and had terminated contracts with government agencies which misuse its products.
Indeed, it’s an unusually forceful move for the US to place such severe restrictions on businesses in a closely allied country; however, Friday’s reports of the hacks on the phones of US officials in Uganda said the spying had been going on for months, a fact which could have influenced the decision to punish NSO Group so severely.
In a November statement announcing NSO Group’s addition to the entity list, the Commerce Department specifically cited embassy workers as a potential target for Pegasus.
“We have been acutely concerned that commercial spyware like NSO Group’s software poses a serious counterintelligence and security risk to US personnel, which is one of the reasons the Biden-Harris Administration has placed several companies involved in the development and proliferation of these tools on the Department of Commerce’s Entity List,” the National Security Council said in a statement to the Washington Post on Friday.
In responseto NSO Group’s inclusion on the entity list, Israel’s government has sharply limited the number of nations that NSO Group and other spyware vendors are allowed to sell to, from 102 to 37.
Some groups, however, say it’s not far enough. On Friday, 81 human rights organizations from around the world, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and Reporters Without Borders, called on the European Union to impose sanctions on the company for its repeated enabling of human rights abuses, including the recent targeting of Palestinian activists.
“There is overwhelming evidence that Pegasus spyware has been repeatedly used by abusive governments to clamp down on peaceful human rights defenders, activists and perceived critics,” Deborah Brown, a senior digital researcher and advocate for Human Rights Watch, said. “The EU should immediately sanction NSO Group and ban any use of its technologies.”
This summer, after the Pegasus Project reporting came out, the UN Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner also called for a moratorium on the sale of such surveillance technology until an international framework on the safeguarding of human rights and the use of surveillance tech like Pegasus is in place.
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), who is a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, has repeatedly and forcefully condemned NSO Group, saying that the US should “[cut] them off from the American financial system and investors by issuing sanctions under the Global Magnitsky Act,” which targets corruption and human rights abuses.
International opprobrium isn’t NSO Group’s only problem, either: According to recent reports, the firm is $500 million in debt, and risks defaulting. As Bloomberg reported in November, Moody’s dropped the company’s credit rating to Caa2 — eight grades below investment grade, indicating that Moody’s believes NSO highly likely to default on its debts.
The downgrade and low cashflow are due to lower revenue and the payment of dividends to shareholders, but the consistent bad press and placement on the entity list will likely only contribute to NSO Group’s problems.
“Who will want to work with a company that’s been so publicly sanctioned by the U.S. government?” David Kaye, a former UN special rapporteur on the promotion of free speech and freedom of expression, told the Washington Post in November. “Who would invest in a company with this kind of black mark?”
One Good Thing: Money Heist, a joyful TV series about fighting the system -
In July 2020, employees dressed in Casa de Papel-inspired garb protest the closure of a Nissan factory in Barcelona where 3,000 people are employed. | Marcos del Mazo/LightRocket via Getty Images
Known as “Casa de Papel” in Spanish, the show has inspired real-life protests.
Rarely has a TV show inspired such widespread, global rebellion as Casa de Papel. Set in Madrid, the now-five-part series tells the story of a group of robbers who steal from Spain’s Royal Mint and, later, the Bank of Spain, taking hostages along the way. The whole thing is conceived and led by “El Profesor,” the almost improbably smart and well- organized fatherly figure who hatches and directs the greatest robbery Spain has ever seen. Twice.
I’m not usually into straight action sequences, but the ones in Money Heist, as it’s called in English,are infused with the running themes of the show: love, friendship, bravery, and, most importantly, resistance. Gunfire-ridden combat is interspersed with rousing monologues from the women protagonists who do more for la revoluciónthan any of the macho displays of physical dominance — which is lucky because there’s substantial badass feminist energy in this show.
What’s unique and ultimately most inspiring about Money Heist is its revolutionary impact on real-world protests. In the series, citizens line the streets surrounding the Royal Mint and the Bank of Spain, chanting their support for the robbers and booing the state’s violent policing tactics. In real life, protesters in countries such as Lebanon, Iraq, France, and others have borrowed motifs from the show in their struggles for liberation, police abolition, anti-authoritarianism, and anti-capitalism.
In the first season, I clapped my hands together in glee when I realized the robbers, who are all codenamed after cities, blagged their way inside the physical root of capitalism’s inequality. Of all places for a heist, the Royal Mint! I practically jumped off my couch when it became clear they were there to do more than just steal money — they were going to print it. Then, in season three, they decide to drop €140 million of it from an inflatable hovercraft over Madrid’s most crowded shopping street.
The show’s main downfall is its omission of racial and gender analysis, both in the fictional world of Money Heist and in the casting. There is no mention of how race and class intersect, despite the whole plot revolving around anti-capitalism and anti-authoritarianism. This is no small exclusion; it is a fundamental flaw of the show. This also carries over to the casting: The character Nairobi is the only person of color in the entire show (the actor who plays her, Alba Flores, is of Romani heritage); and the character Manila, who is trans, is played by a cisgender actor. These pitfalls render the show a shamefully incomplete take on the issues it otherwise portrays so accurately and poignantly.
Each new note the robbers produce becomes a symbolic act of defiance. They prove the superficiality of wealth creation and the ease of redistribution in a world of class hierarchies, where this gang has often found itself at the bottom. Moscow, for example, is a working-class Asturian miner whose wife left him and his son Denver (also a member of the gang) amid a haze of drug addiction. Moscow’s participation in the heist is driven by his desire for a better life for himself and his son, a way out of the grueling mining life and a chance to move up the socioeconomic ladder.
Nairobi, an inimitable powerhouse, is a single mom living in poverty who sells drugs to pay for living expenses. Upon discovering this, a child services agency takes away her son and prohibits her from visiting him. Her commitment to the heist is rooted in her belief that, armed with the thousands of euros they’re set to print and steal, she can get him back. Her enthusiasm as she directs the hostages in printing the bills is underpinned by an ardent conviction that she can defy the power structures that led to having her child taken away. Her money is her power. In what is undoubtedly my favorite scene of the entire series, she beams from ear to ear, encouraging and praising the hostages’ efforts as she recites her motto, “Joy, party, and hope!”
Claudio Santana/Getty Images
A man in a Salvador Dalí mask protests President Sebastian Piñera’s government in Santiago, Chile, in October 2019.
The way these messages have influenced protests is clear in how frequently the robbers’ eye-catching costume of bright-red jumpsuits and masks have been making appearances at protests around the world. Additionally, the show has revived the old antifascist Italian protest anthem “Bella Ciao,” which appears at crucial moments of success and defiance. It’s long been considered a protest anthem in many parts of the world — in Iran, in Turkey, and on Wall Street — but the show has really brought it to a wider public.
Of course, it is in Italy that the song’s significance is felt deepest. Matteo Salvini, the leader of the ultra-right-wing nationalist political party Lega Nord, seems to be, quite hilariously, met by crowds singing it at him wherever he goes — on the bus, at markets, during speeches. It also accompanies many other progressive movements in Italy and beyond: Poojan Sahil’s Punjabi version of the song has gone viral in India, the video set against the backdrop of the Indian farmers’ protests, which remain ongoing.
In the show, the song has also been used in celebratory moments, like when Moscow discovers he has reached the soft soil layer of the escape tunnel he’s been digging. The various members of the team join him one by one, belting out the song together in exaltation. The most poignant performance of “Bella Ciao” comes in the season one finale, where we see El Profesor and Berlin sing it together in a flashback to the night before the heist begins. Tears stream down Berlin’s face in defiant anticipation of success. The moment was so emotional, I felt my own tears fall as well.
In real life, a particularly moving piece of footage shows migrants rescued by the NGO Open Arms as they sing “Bella Ciao,” jumping up and down in joy and relief at having reached dry land in Barcelona. In March 2020, when Italy began to suffer the highest number of Covid-19 deaths in Europe, a community in the German town of Bamberg performed the song from their own rooftops in solidarity, another moment that brought tears to my eyes.
In 2020, Nissan employees in Spain took to the streets dressed as the Casa de Papel characters to protest the government’s decision to close Nissan plants across the country. They were also drawing attention to something bigger: the rights of workers and the imbalance of power between corporate elites and employees.
Puerto Ricans donned the same costumes to call for the resignation of corrupt Gov. Ricardo Rosselló, using the adage “Somos la puta resistencia,” which translates to “We are the fucking resistance” — a reference to a speech made by El Profesor in season three, combined with arguably the most iconic line in the whole five seasons, the Nairobi quote “Soy la puta ama” — “I’m the fucking boss.” (Okay, so it’s a bit more profound in Spanish.)
The notion of police and state corruption has been a longstanding element of Spanish life. 15-M is the country’s anti-austerity movement, said to have inspired Occupy Wall Street. Beginning on May 15, 2011, (which is where the name 15-M comes from) following a huge economic crash, protests took place in the center of Madrid and elsewhere in the country to demand better living conditions, welfare and employment support, and an end to political corruption.
Although Casa de Papel came out several years after 15-M began, the movement is considered an attitude in Spain, a way of existing in society in resistance to austerity and exploitation. As someone with a background in social justice work, I find it arduous and frustrating to watch shows that replicate harmful socioeconomic structures, such as those that praise cops and the military without any reference to the violence and destruction they leave in their wake. It is beautiful to see the kinds of anti-state ideals discussed within activist circles being depicted in one of Netflix’s most popular series of all time. The second part of season five — slated to be the show’s final season — is set to release on December 3. Here’s hoping that the series can inspire more revolutions, more resistance, and more liberation in the years to come.
Biden’s bewildering decision to expand a Trump-era immigration policy -
Asylum-seeking migrants, at right, pray for a group of migrants, left, who have already received asylum petition appointments during a worship service at a migrant shelter in Tijuana, Mexico, in July. | Mario Tama/Getty Images
The Biden administration says it’s still committed to ending “Remain in Mexico.”
President Joe Biden says he wants to end the “Remain in Mexico” policy, a Trump-era program that has forced tens of thousands of migrants to await decisions on their immigration cases in Mexico for months.
In a seemingly contradictory move, Biden is first reinstating and expanding it. The program’s return was ordered by the courts. The policy’s expansion, however, was a choice made by the Biden administration.
On Thursday, the US reached an agreement with the Mexican government to revive the Migration Protection Protocols (MPP), also known as the “Remain in Mexico” policy. Under Trump, the policy allowed 70,000 migrants seeking entry into the US to be sent to Mexican border towns where many lived in squalid encampments or in overcrowded shelters and were targeted by criminal gangs.
Biden halted MPP shortly after taking office, fulfilling a campaign promise. But his administration has argued that it has no choice but to reinstate the program starting on Monday. A federal court in Texas ordered the administration to continue forcing migrants to wait in Mexico until it expands its capacity to detain migrants in the US. The ruling came as part of a lawsuit brought by Texas and Missouri; the Supreme Court has refused to block that lower court ruling.
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas nevertheless has maintained that the administration is committed to ending the program eventually.
“MPP had endemic flaws, imposed unjustifiable human costs, pulled resources and personnel away from other priority efforts, and did not address the root causes of irregular migration,” he wrote in an October memo. “MPP not only undercuts the Administration’s ability to implement critically needed and foundational changes to the immigration system, it fails to provide the fair process and humanitarian protections that individuals deserve under the law.”
But by reimplementing the program in the meantime with relatively few changes, the Biden administration has disappointed some Democrats, migrant advocates and even asylum officers tasked with screening people subject to the program. They have argued that the program is itself illegal and shirks the US’s obligation under federal and international law not to return migrants to danger.
Immigration advocates are also angered by the fact that Biden isn’t just reinstating MPP; he’s broadening its scale. Now, all other citizens of countries in the Western Hemisphere can be sent back under the program, which previously only covered Spanish speakers.
The administration isn’t doing so because the court ordered it to — that wasn’t part of the court’s instructions — and it hasn’t explained why it’s expanding the program, and did not respond to a request for comment on Friday. That leaves room for doubt about its commitment to ensuring the safety of migrants who will suffer from keeping MPP in place.
“We categorically reject the Biden administration’s claims that it can administer the Remain in Mexico program in a more humane manner,” Jorge Loweree, policy director at the American Immigration Council, said in a statement. “The longer the administration delays terminating this unlawful and cruel policy, the more people will suffer.”
Biden’s changes to the program aren’t enough
The dangers associated with sending migrants back to Mexico are well documented. As of February 2021, a report by Human Rights First identified more than 1,500 murders, kidnappings, rapes, torture and other attacks on migrants returned to Mexico under MPP. And a survey of 20,000 asylum seekers trapped at the US-Mexico border conducted by the legal aid group Al Otro Lado found that 83 percent had been subject to threats or physical violence, including 89 percent of LGBTQ asylum seekers.
Despite that, and despite having permission from the lower court to do things differently, Biden isn’t changing much about the way MPP has been run. And his administration’s policy still leaves determinations about exemptions to the discretion of individual border agents.
The administration says it will complete all cases in the program within six months of a migrant’s return to Mexico. The Trump administration promised to clear cases in the same time frame, but largely failed to meet it in practice due to a lack of prioritization and backlogs in the immigration courts, limitations the Biden administration still faces.
Biden has also outlined exemptions to the program similar to those the Trump administration used, including for people with disabilities and the elderly. Given that border agents will be tasked with identifying those people, some may fall through the cracks.
The US has said it will also work with the Mexican government to provide “safe and secure” shelters for those enrolled in the program. However, shelter directors along the border say they’re already overwhelmed, and local officials in Mexico have yet to be approached by the Biden administration about funding to expand capacity. The two countries have also promised to provide safe transport to and from US ports of entry, and work permits, health care, and other services in Mexico.
Perhaps most importantly, border agents will now proactively interview migrants to determine whether they have a “reasonable possibility” of facing danger in Mexico before returning them under the program. It will be up to those agents to refer migrants who express any fear of harm if returned to Mexico to an asylum officer for further screening.
Migrants will be able to consult a lawyer before those interviews, though few will benefit from that part of the deal. Previously, only about 18 percent of people subject to MPP who showed up for their hearings were able to pay for a lawyer or had access to free legal counsel, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University, which collects and analyzes data on US immigration courts.
But even with those changes, the administration’s own asylum officers say there is no way to ensure migrants’ safety under the “irredeemably flawed” program.
“While the administration has taken measures intended to mitigate some of the most egregious elements of MPP’s prior iteration, a program that requires asylum seekers to remain in one of the most dangerous parts of the world while their cases are pending in US immigration courts cannot guarantee their protection from persecution and torture, as required by US law,” the union for asylum officers tasked with screening people subject to MPP wrote in a letter on Thursday.
Biden wasn’t forced to expand MPP
The Biden administration argued that its hands are tied by the courts when it comes to MPP. Immigrant advocates, however, say that the administration should have acted more quickly to build its case against the program, and that it is under no legal obligation to expand it.
The Biden administration first issued a memo terminating MPP in June. The Texas court found that memo didn’t provide sufficient justification for the decision on August 13. Still, it wasn’t until October 29 that Mayorkas finally issued another memo elaborating on the administration’s reasoning in a manner that might have boosted its case had it been released in July.
Karen Tumlin, an immigration litigator and director and founder of the Justice Action Center, said the Biden administration bears responsibility for dragging their feet on issuing the second memo — what she says is the “thing that was most likely to ultimately end the court order.”
“That delay is what caused the situation we are in today,” she said.
There is also nothing in the court’s order that suggests the Biden administration had to expand MPP. With the exception of Brazilians, non-Spanish speakers were not previously subject to the program, in part because they would have difficulty finding work in Mexico and would have no realistic means of sustaining themselves while pursuing their asylum claims in the US.
Now, all citizens of Western Hemisphere countries are subject to MPP unless they qualify for an exemption. That includes Haitians, who have faced racial discrimination and been targets of violent crimes in Mexico — and not just at the hands of gangs. According to the Al Otro Lado survey, 20 percent of Haitian asylum seekers had been subject to physical violence or extortion by Mexican law enforcement.
The Biden administration noted in its plan for reimplementation that the Mexican government may narrow the categories of migrants subject to MPP, or limit the number of non-Spanish speakers in the program going forward. As it stands, however, the program could cover more migrants than it did under Trump.
“The Biden administration was not ordered by the court to expand Remain in Mexico to new populations,” Ursela Ojeda, senior policy adviser for migrant rights and justice at the Women’s Refugee Commission, said in a press call. “They are going well above and beyond good faith compliance that’s required of them [by the court] to make this policy more cruel and more deadly.”
From The Hindu: Sports
Stockbridge claims Golconda 2000 Guineas - Trainer Arjun Manglorkar’s Stockbridge ridden by Antony Raj S won the Golconda 2000 Guineas (Gr. 2), the main attraction of Sunday’s (Dec. 5) races h
Glorious Grace, Dark Son, Cavallo Bonito, Victory Walk and Amore shine - Glorious Grace, Dark Son, Cavallo Bonito, Victory Walk and Amore shone when the horses were exercised here on Sunday (Dec. 5).Inner sand:600m: Emissa
Australia confirm Travis Head and Mitchell Starc will play in 1st Ashes Test - Pat Cummins said that Head is set to be picked ahead of Usman Khawaja in this week’s first Ashes Test at the Gabba
Junior hockey World Cup | Bukkens’ hat-trick ensures 5th place finish for Netherlands - Earlier in the first match of the day, Pau Cunill (49, 55th, 58th) scored a hat-trick, while Eduard de De Iganicio-Simo struck a field goal in the seventh minute as Spain defeated Malaysia 4-1 to finish in the seventh spot
Rain limits play on day 2 of 2nd Bangladesh v Pakistan Test - Just 6.2 overs from a possible 98 were possible as Pakistan resumed the day on 161-2 and reached 188-2 before the umpires called it a day.
From The Hindu: National News
In Kerala, communally inflammatory reactions following murders raise the heat at places with history of political violence - The floods and the pandemic took the bite out of the political rivalry in several region. That peace, however, now appears under stress because of visible attempts to build up tensions in Kerala
S. Jaishankar flags ‘sharpening of tensions’ on territorial issues across Asia amidst China’s rise - The Enternal Affairs Minister was speaking at the fifth Indian Ocean Conference - IOC 2021 in Abu Dhabi
2022 U.P. polls | SP to conduct caste census if voted to power, says Om Prakash Rajbhar - “Our aim is to remove the BJP, and make Akhilesh Yadav the Chief Minister,” Mr. Rajbhar said
BJP will never topple government, it will come to power in Rajasthan with strong mandate in 2023: Amit Shah - Targeting the Congress, he said that former prime minister Indira Gandhi had given the slogan of ‘Garibi Hatao’, but the work to remove poverty started after the Modi government was formed in 2014
Centre taking measures to simplify justice delivery system: Rijiju - Union Minister for Law and Justice Kiren Rijiju said a large number of paralegal volunteers has been appointed by his Ministry to create necessary awareness among people so that they can take advantage of free legal camps to get speedy justice.
From BBC: Europe
Biden and Putin to talk amid Ukraine invasion fears - On Tuesday the US and Russian leaders will speak amid mounting concerns of Russia invading Ukraine.
Why France faces so much anger in West Africa - Despite engaging better with the African continent recently, the ex-colonial power faces a backlash.
Afghanistan: Macron reveals plans for joint European mission - The French president says a number of European nations are working on a joint diplomatic mission.
French climber handed Mont Blanc gems after 2013 find - The stones are believed to be from an Air India plane which crashed into the mountain in 1966.
Ready for power: Team Scholz promises a new Germany - Next week will see a handover of power from the Merkel era and this is what to expect.
From Ars Technica
Raised by Wolves S2 teaser reminds us why we loved the series—until the S1 finale - “Androids can change, just like human beings.” - link
Activision Blizzard “will not be a part” of this year’s Game Awards show - Publisher’s nominations will stand as Keighley walks back noncommittal position. - link
Meta’s failed Giphy deal could end Big Tech’s spending spree - Not so long ago, Meta’s big-money deal to acquire Giphy would have been waved through. - link
What will it take to end deforestation by 2030? - Here’s how nations can put the brakes on deforestation. - link
COVID vaccinations spike in US as delta rages and omicron looms - Vaccines expected to offer some protection from omicron as speedy spread continues. - link
The angel at the gate asks the first man “how many times did you cheat on your wife?” “10 times” the man answers. The angel gives him the keys to a 2010 Toyota Camry “this is how you will drive around heaven”. The second man says he cheated on his wife 5 times, the angel gives him a 2018 Lexus and let’s him in. The third man says he never cheated on his wife, he gets a 2021 Rolls Royce.
A few days later the 3 men meet and the man in the Rolls Royce is very sad, the men ask him what’s wrong, he replys "I just saw my wife riding around on a scooter.
So there’s these two conjoined twins, one is a sex worker and the other is a jazz saxophonist. They’re both big Josh Groban fans. -
It’s rough for them to make ends meet. With gigging hours obviously in such inconvenient and constant conflict, the saxophonist had been forced to settle for busking the morning commute and the occasional church revival gig. Nevertheless, in a sudden and miraculous twist of fate, they win two backstage passes for the Josh Groban concert in the annual “Blow your Sax and Show your Racks!” saxophone virtuoso and tiddy showing competition hosted by the local AM radio jazz station.
Tensions build between the two in the days leading up to the event, with the saxophonist repeatedly grilling her sister over the upcoming backstage adventure. They’re doing dishes together when Sarah, the saxophonist, speaks.
“Rachel. You’re not going to try and fuck Josh Groban are you?”
The silence is deafening, save the clink clunk of dishes in soapy water knocking against the heavy porcelain of their antique farm sink; an obsolete and cumbersome appliance that Sarah had insisted on during the remodel. Rachel had thought it too hipster, as if the kitchen sink could at any moment put on a Fleet Foxes LP and offer her a shot of aged bourbon, exactly the kind of contrived over-presentation she had come to expect from Sarah.
The question hangs in the air.
“Rachel?”
“No!” Rachel shoots back, “I am not going to fuck him! STOP asking me that!”
The night of the concert they get into their car, a Transit van converted for the sisters’ use with a bench seat and passenger side steering wheel and pedals for Rachel, though Sarah still drove most of the time.
The concert is great. Top drawer Groban and everybody loves it. After the third and final encore the sisters make their way through security to the backstage meet and greet area. Passing the dusty storage locker containing the costumes and sets for the venue’s failed enterprise “Breaking Bad On Ice!”, Sarah turns to Rachel and takes a breath as if to speak.
Rachel snaps, “I swear to fucking Christ if you ask me one more god damned time if I’m going to fuck Josh Groban tonight I will call Dr. Coalfield right fucking now and schedule the separation surgery!”
The surgery.
Neither of them wanted it. It could have happened at any time after age seven. They didn’t share any major organs. Aside from a few circulatory and endocrine connections and some shared nerve endings they were only really connected by about six centimeters of pelvic bone. However their mother Opal Strangelhorn was a devout Seventh Day Adventist, who insisted the nature of her twin daughters was “God’s plan”, much to the consternation of the girls’ absentee father, Bjorn Svedsmensven, the famed atheist particle physicist who had met Opal for a one night stand while touring with a USSR nuclear demonstration team.
Sarah stops suddenly on the ramp, tripping Rachel by deliberately breaking their carefully choreographed stride.
“Fuck you, Rachel.”
Rachel is silent. They count off and start walking again.
“I don’t see why we’re paying for a therapist if you aren’t going to listen to what he says. Remember? Mark think we should have the surgery, and he said you definitely need to stop using it as”
“OK!” Rachel cuts Sarah off as they approach the golden vinyl sectional couch where Josh Groban sits in a red and gold silk robe, arranging a mountain of cocaine into a staff of sheet music on the glass top table.
“You know what that is?” Josh sniffs at the sisters
Sarah is awestruck.
Rachel answers, “Coke?”
Josh leans back on the couch, stares at them, eyes glazed in jaded boredom, “It’s fuckin Beethoven.”
Sarah stammers, “I..I..I was just beginning to wonder”
Josh screams, “Beethoven’s eighth! Hahahahahaha right Rick?”
A large security guard on a stool by the window looks up from his Subway sandwich, “That’s right, boss.”
“Fuck yeah, keep an eye out that window, Rick! I don’t want Bieber tryna steal my licks!”
Josh turns back, grabbing a straw off the end of the table he makes awkward intense eye contact with the sisters and sings Beethoven’s signature “dundundunduuuun” at Sarah, then the lower pitched “dundundunduuuun” at Rachel, then snorts a random diagonal line across the meticulous representation on the table. He raises his head and howls at the ceiling.
“Oooooooowwwwwww!” He jumps to his feet and dances singing, “Badoo BOW beedeepa Bada bap-ap OW!…. Write that down, Rick!”
“You know it, boss.”
…
Four hours later the sisters awake suddenly to the distinctive sound of a pistol being fired into a piano.
The sex had been OK. Of course Rachel had managed to bed Groban, and of course Sarah had changed her mind and decided to play jazz freestyle during the act. That’s what always happened. They would fight in the times leading up, but when faced with the act they would both be inclined to consent, given over to their primal and visceral desire to perform the act in this particular way, the only way they knew how, one fucking, the other playing saxophone.
Their mother had always seen the sisters mere existence as some sort of messianic metaphor, and prohibited the surgery on those simple religious grounds but this, the fucking with the saxophone thing, was why the sisters had chosen to remain conjoined in adulthood.
Mark the therapist would often remark, “You can still lay next to each other and one fucks and the other plays the sax, even if you’re separate.” and Sarah and Rachel would quietly look at each other because they knew, it wouldn’t be the same.
They hear Groban’s muffled shouts through the wall.
“Where the fuck is Rick!?”
They get dressed and quickly make their way out of the bedroom where they see Josh sweating holding a pistol, an open window letting rain in, and a small man in a black burglar’s outfit with the mask lifted to reveal a little mustache lying dead shot in the chest and hunched over a piano bench clutching a handful of scribbled notebook papers.
Sarah covers her mouth and gasps, “Bieber.”
Josh collects himself and speaks, “Where, the fuck, is Rick.”
Lightning strikes. The rain picking up and wind blowing the curtain in the open window.
Sarah says quietly, “Did you fucking shoot Bieber?”
Josh grabs his hair, breathing heavily again, “Egghhhhhhhhhh! I told Rick this was going to fucking happen! Mother FUCKERS stealing my NOTES! Where the fuck is Rick?!”
The sisters run to the window, “Shut the fuck up, Josh” they say in unison. They close the window and curtains after looking down to the street and confirming their suspicion, seeing Rick lying dead on the sidewalk, piano wire around his neck.
They turn back to Josh and kneel to work while Sarah pulls a hacksaw and duct tape from her saxophone case Rachel speaks, “We can take care of this Josh. We can make this all go away.”
And they could take care of it. They had done so many times before. The youth pastor who tried to assault them in highschool, the landlord in Tulsa, the handful of Johns who just hadn’t been that lucky, countless others. The sisters could handle a murder. That was old hat. That’s why they had the van.
And as much as Sarah hated when Rachel would quote him, they both knew their father was right when he said in his drunken Latvian accent, “They’ll never believe you two are capable of anything because of your so-called disability, so you may as well use that to get away with murder!” and it was true. The crimes kept coming and they don’t stop coming, and nobody ever suspects conjoined twins.
“We have a van, Josh. Go find some fucking garbage bags. And get some pants on, we’re going to the desert.”
…
The next afternoon they’re in a diner in Barstow. Groban looks out the window at the late afternoon sun stretching shadows over the freeway. He had never killed a man before, and losing Rick would be difficult to explain.
Everything had been accounted for though. The sisters had seen to that. They drop Josh at a rest stop where he could rendezvous with an Uber. They say good bye and drive back to their normal life.
One year passes.
They see that Josh Groban is gonna be back in town.
“Do you think we should see if he wants to meet up?” asks Rachel
A funeral service is being held in a synagogue for a woman who has just passed away. -
At the end of the service, the pall bearers are carrying the casket out when they accidentally bump into a wall jarring the casket. They hear a faint moan. They open the casket and find that the woman is actually alive. She lives for 10 more years and then dies. A ceremony is again held at the same synagogue and at the end of the ceremony the pall bearers are again carrying the casket. As they are walking the husband cries out, “Watch out for the wall!”
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